The Micropreneur Academy

TheMicropreneur Academy is an online training program for current and aspiring software entrepreneurs. Its goal is to take one-person software startups from zero to launch in four months. The Academy opened in April via a semi-private launch, but it has re-opened for general enrollment.

The creator, Rob Walling, is a full-time Serial Micropreneur based in Fresno, California. Rob uses the term Serial Micropreneurto describe an entrepreneur who creates the lifestyle of his or her choice through a portfolio of one-person technology businesses (MicroISVs, SaaS websites, e-commerce sites, etc.).

Micropreneurship

Micropreneurship is about building and marketing niche software products. The goals of a Micropreneur are simple:

Retain the ability to write code (if you choose),

Support yourself financially with no employees, and

Work when and where you like.

Micropreneurs are highly technical entrepreneurs who value time, location, and income independence; in other words, the ability to control when and where they work, and how much money they make. Micropreneurs automate ruthlessly and use outsourcing extensively.

The Academy

The Micropreneur Academyis a paid community of solo software entrepreneurs who’ve come to learn how to go from product idea to successful launch. They also support one another through the private forums and a members-only LinkedIn group.

The Academy follows a structured blueprint for finding a viable niche, building or buying a product, launching, marketing, and supporting it…all as a one-person software company. Here are some examples of what is available at the Academy:

How to find and test a market before spending one hour developing a product

The fundamental principles of Micropreneurs who have been successful

Avoiding the biggest roadblocks to success

Transitioning from developer to Micropreneur

The best way to find out if a niche is viable

Concrete ideas on how to price your product (and how to tell if your pricing strategy is working)

How to offload repetitive tasks and increase your productivity by 2x-3x

How to be supremely effective at automation and outsourcing

Putting together a pay per click ad campaign that works…not just a bunch of keywords thrown into AdWords

Why buying a product might be better than building one

Your exit strategy—everything you need to know about selling a product

In just over three months, the Academy has hundreds of in-depth posts to the forums. A number of software products built by Academy members has either launched or will be launching in the next month, including products such as social photo sharing app Pixur.me, online mind mapping tool ThoughtMuse, web based proposal software BidSketch, domain name idea engine HotNameList, foreclosure listing site flip-start, and several others.

The Academy is currently open to new members. Visit Micropreneur.com to learn more.

As Rob says,

“There has never been a better time in history to be a person with technical skills and entrepreneurial drive.”

This entry was posted on August 5, 2009 at 8:39 pm and is filed under Professional Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.